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BIBLICAL  LOVE-DITTIES 


A  Critical  Interpretation, 
and  Translation, of  the 
Song  of  Solomon 


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Biblical  Love-Ditties 


A  Critical  Interpretation,  and  Trans- 
lation, of  the  Song  of  Solomon 


By 

PAUL  HAUPT 

Professor  in  the  Johns  Hopkins  University, 
Baltimore 


Copyright  by  the  Open  Court  Pub.  Co. 
in   THE  OPEN  COURT,  May,  1902 


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324  Dearborn  Sti'eet,  Chicago 


BIBLICAL  LOVE-DITTIES. 


GOETHE  says  in  the  notes  to  his  Westdstlicher  Divan1  that  the 
Song  of  Solomon  is  'the  most  tender  and  inimitable  expres- 
sion of  graceful  yet  passionate  love  that  has  come  down  to  us.2 
Unfortunately  the  poems  cannot  be  fully  enjoyed — since  they  are 
fragmentary,  telescoped,  or  driven  into  one  another,  and  mixed  up  ; 
but  it  is  delightful  to  divine  the  conditions  under  which  the  poets 
lived.  The  mild  air  of  the  most  charming  district  of  Canaan  breathes 
through  the  poem,  cosy  rustic  conditions,  vineyards,  gardens,  beds 
of  spices,  some  urban  limitations,3  and  a  royal  court  in  the  back- 
ground.4 But  the  principal  theme  is  an  ardent  longing  of  youthful 
hearts,  seeking,  finding,  repulsing,6  attracting,  under  various  most 
simple  conditions.  We  thought  repeatedly  of  selecting  and  arrang- 
ing something  out  of  this  charming  confusion,  but  this  enigmatic 
and  inextricable  condition  invests  those  few  leaves  with  a  peculiar 
charm.  Many  a  time  well-meaning  methodical  minds  have  been 
tempted  to  find  or  establish  an  intelligible  connection,  but  a  sub- 
sequent student  must  do  the  work  all  over  again.' 

This  view  is,  perhaps,  too  pessimistic.  It  is  true  that  it  is  im- 
possible to  retrace  the  original  plan  of  the  author  of  the  Song  of 
Solomon,  for  the  simple  reason  that  there  is  no  author  of  the  Book. 
But  the  traditional  arrangement,  or  rather  disarrangement,  may  be 

1  Goethes  Werke  herausgegeben  int  Au/trage  der  Grossherxogin  Sophie  von  Sachsen,  vol.  vii. 
(Weimar,  1888)  p.  8.  Cf.  P.  Holzhausen,  Goethe  und  seine  Uebersetzung  des  Hohenliedes  in  Deut- 
sche Revue,  March,  1896,  pp.  370-372. 

2  This  will  perhaps  strike  some  as  an'exaggeration. 

3This  is  not  correct;  watchmen  in  iii.  3  and  v.  7  represents  a  subsequent  addition. 

i  There  are  only  allusions  to  the  hangings  in  Solomon's  palace  (i.  5)  and  to  Solomon's  harem 
vi.  8,  viii.  n).  In  the  other  passages  in  which  Solomon  is  mentioned,  this  name  represents  a 
scribal  expansion,  while  King  (i.  4  and  12,  iii.  9  and  n)  refers  to  the  King  of  the  Wedding-feast, 
i  e.,  the  bridegroom.    Jews  in  Russia  and  Palestine  still  call  the  bridegroom  King. 

5  In  v.  6  the  lover  does  not  reject  the  maiden ;  only  i.  8  might,  perhaps,  be  said  to  imply  a  re- 
jection. 


4  BIBLICAL  LOVE-DITTIES. 

very  much  improved,  and  the  received  text  freed  from  a  great  many 
subsequent  additions  and  superfluous  repetitions.  In  this  re- 
arrangement the  Song  of  Solomon  certainly  becomes  much  more 
intelligible  than  it  is  in  its  traditional  'charming  confusion.'  The 
restoration  of  the  individual  songs  is  far  more  important  than  the 
restoration  of  the  sequence  of  the  love-ditties  in  the  original  col- 
lection. The  arrangement  of  the  songs  may  have  varied  at  an  early 
date  ;  it  may  even  have  been  injudicious  and  inappropriate  from 
the  beginning. 

The  so-called  Song  of  Solomon  is  not  the  work  of  one  poet  but 
a  late  post-Exilic  collection  of  popular  nuptial  songs  and  love-dit- 
ties which  may  all  have  been  sung  at  Hebrew  weddings,  although 
they  were  not  originally  composed  for  this  purpose.  They  were 
probably  compiled  in  the  neighborhood  of  Damascus  after  the  be- 
ginning of  the  Seleucidan  era  (312  B.C.).  In  Palestine  the  autumn 
is  the  usual  time  for  weddings;  after  the  harvest,  says  Dalman  in 
the  introduction  to  his  Palestinian  Divan,1  the  young  men  have 
leisure  and  also  money  to  pay  for  the  brides,  but  in  the  country 
east  of  the  Jordan,  especially  in  the  neighborhood  of  Damascus, 
the  majority  of  the  weddings  take  place  during  March  which  is  the 
most  beautiful  month  of  the  year.  According  to  Wetzstein,2  for 
many  years  Prussian  Consul  at  Damascus,  the  weddings  are  cele- 
brated there  on  the  threshing-floor  of  the  village,  which  is  at  that 
time  of  the  year  a  flowery  meadow.  This  Springtide  of  Love  is 
described  in  the  beautiful  poem  which  we  find  in  the  second  chap- 
ter of  the  Song  of  Solomon  : 

»•  8    Hark  !  dearest  mine, 

behold,  he  is  coming, 
Over  mountains  leaping, 
over  hillocks  skipping. 
9    Behold,  he  is  standing 
behind  our  wall  there ! 
From  windows  I  peer  down, 
through  lattices  peeping. 
10    Arise,   my  darling! 

ah,  come  my  fair  one! 

n    For  look  you,  past  is  the  winter, 

and  rains  no  longer  are  falling, 
12    The  ground  is  covered  with  flowers, 

and  birds  fill  the  air  with  warbling. 

IGustav  H.  Dalman,  Palastinischer  Di-wan  (Leipzig,  igoi)  p.  xii. 

2  Qf.  S.  R.  Driver's  Introduction  to  the  Literature  of  the  Old  Testament,  sixth  edition    New 
York,  1897)  p.  452. 


BIBLICAL  LOVE-DITTIES.  5 

We  hear  the  cooing  of  turtles, 

to  our  home  is  come  back  the  swallow.1 

13  The  fruit  of  figtrees  is  ripening, 

and  fragrance  exhales  from  the  grapevines. 
Arise,   my  darling! 
ah,  come,   my  fair  one! 

14  My  dove  in  the  rock-cleft, 

in  the  cliff's  recesses, 
Open,  my  sister  ! 

come,  my  perfection  ! 2 
Thy  face  show  me, 

thy  voice  grant  me  ! 
For  sweet  thy  voice, 

and  fair  thy  face. 
Arise,   my  darling! 

ah,   come,   my  fair  one!3 

The  bride  was  given  away  by  her  brothers,  and  in  the  last  chap- 
ter of  the  Song  of  Songs  we  have  a  little  epigrammatic  poem  twit- 
ting the  brothers  of  the  bride  for  their  unnecessary  and  premature 
solicitude  concerning  the  chastity  and  the  marriage  of  their  sister. 
The  bride  says  : 

vi-  3    My  dear  one's  am  I,  and  he  is  mine,  too  ; 
vii.  10        and,  ah,  for  my  love  he  is  longing. 
'»■  1    A  meadow-saffron  of  Sharon, 
or  a  lily  of  the  valleys  am  I. 

There  are  no  white  lilies  in  Palestine  ;  the  word  susan  denotes,  not 
a  white  lily  but  a  dark  purple  sword-lily.4  The  bride  means  to 
say  that,  while  she  may  be  a  little  tanned  like  the  pale-lilac  flowers 
of  the  meadow-saffron,  or  even  like  the  dark  purple  sword-lilies, 
she  is  just  as  beautiful  as  these  flowers,  and  our  Saviour  said 
(Matt.  vi.  29)  that  even  Solomon  in  all  his  glory  was  not  arrayed 
like  one  of  these.  The  bride  therefore  continues  that,  while  she 
may  be  a  little  swarthy  like  the  black  tents  of  the  Bedouins,  she  is 
nevertheless  just  as  beautiful  as  the  magnificent  hangings  in  Sol- 
omon's palace.  The  Bedouin  girls  consider  themselves  black  and 
call  the  city  girls  white.      The  white  and  the  brown  girls  play  a 

1  Cf.  Jeremiah  viii.  7. 

2  Cf.  chapter  v,  verse  2. 

8The  rhythm  of  the  translations  has  been  much  improved  by  the  kind  assistance  of  the  dis- 
tinguished coeditor  of  the  Polychrome  Bible,  Horace  Howard  Furness. 

4  Gladiolus  atroviolaceus.  The  Greeks  called  this  dark  purple  sword-lily  hyacinth.  Apollo 
caused  this  flower  to  spring  from  the  blood  of  Hyacinthus.  Ovid  {Metamorph.  x.  210)  says  that 
the  hyacinth  looks  like  a  lily,  but  is  not  white  but  purple ;  and  Theocritus  (x.  28)  says  to  the  grace- 
ful but  sunburnt  Syrian  maiden  Bombyce.  The  violets  and  hyacinths  are  swart,  yet  these  flowers 
are  chosen  the  first  in  garlands.  The  ancients  believed  that  the  exclamation  AI  '  woe,'  was  marked 
on  the  petals  of  the  hyacinth. 


6  BIBLICAL  LOVE-DITTIES. 

very  prominent  part  in  modern  Palestinian  poetry.  The  second 
stanza  of  this  love-ditty  continues  : 

i-  5    Swarthy  am  I,  but  comely, 

ye  maidens  who  live  in  Jerusalem, 
Dark  like  the  tents  of  Kedar, 

but  like  arras  in  Solomon's  palace. 

6    Heed  not  my  swarthy  complexion, 
the  sun  it  is  that  has  burned  me  : 
Wroth  were  the  sons  of  my  mother, 

of  the  vineyards  they  made  me  the  keeper. 

Here  a  glossator  has  appended  an  additional  clause, 

but  I  have  not  kept  my  own  vineyard, 

and  the  meaning  of  'vineyards,'  i.  e.,  virginity,  was  explained  in  an 
illustrative  quotation  from  a  song  which  the  maidens,  it  may  be 
supposed,  used  to  sing  in  the  vineyards,  and  which  may  be  com- 
pared to  the  Schnadahiipfeln  in  the  Bavarian,  Tyrolese,  and  Styrian 

Alps: 

i>-  J5    Catch  us  the  foxes, 
the  little  foxes,1 
Destroying  vineyards,2 
our  vineyards  in  blossom. 

The  bride  then  continues  that  her  brothers  used   to  say  when 
she  was  still  an  immature  little  girl : 

viii.  8    We  have  a  tiny  little  sister, 
and  breasts,  not  as  yet,  has  she. 
But  what  shall  we  do  with  our  sister, 
when  the  time  comes  for  her  wooing  ? 

9    If  she  be  like  a  wall  (stopping  lovers), 
we  will  place  on  it  copings  of  silver. 

We  will  crown  her  with  a  silver  bridal  crown  and  give  her  a  hand- 
some outfit,  if  she  marries  with  our  consent,  but 

If  a  door  (open  wide  to  all  lovers), 

we  will  bar  it  with  boards  made  of  cedars. 

io    Albeit  a  wall  am  I  thus  far, 

my  breasts  are  now  growing  like  towers, 
And  to  them  I  am  verily  seeming 
ready  to  surrender  the  fortress. 

Then  the  maiden  addresses  her  lover : 

viii.  i    Ah,  that  thou  wert  my  brother, 

nursed  at  the  breast  of  my  mother  ! 

IThat  is,  the  young  men. 

2 Foxes  are  very  fond  of  grapes;  cf.  the  Esopian  fable  of  the  Fox  and  the  Sour  Grapes. 


BIBLICAL  LOVE-DITTIES.  7 

Then,  wheresoever  I  meet  thee, 

I  might  kiss,  and  none  would  contemn  me ! 

To  my  mother's  house  I  would  lead  thee, 
to  the  chamber  of  her  who  there  bore  me, 

And  make  thee  drink  wine  that  is  spiced 
and  the  must  of  the  pomegranate  fruitage. 

/.  e. ,  I  will  bestow  my  love  on  thee.1 

The  lover  is  just  as  enthusiastic  in  the  praise  of  his  sweetheart. 
He  says,  there  is  a  large  vineyard  at  Baal-hammon,2  alluding  to  a 
large  harem,  such  as  Solomon  had  according  to  i  Kings  xi.  3, 
where  it  is  stated  that  he  had  700  queens  and  300  concubines. 
That  vineyard  was  so  large  that  the  owner  could  not  keep  it  in 
order  without  assistance,  just  as  a  large  harem  requires  a  number 
of  eunuchs.  The  keepers  of  this  large  vineyard  probably  consume 
one-fifth  of  the  annual  income,  and  it  is  not  impossible  that  the  in- 
mates of  a  large  harem  may  bestow  one-fifth  of  their  favors  on  the 
keepers.  The  lover  prefers  to  have  his  bride  exclusively  for  him- 
self and  to  allow  no  percentage  whatever  to  an  'assistant.'     He 

says: 

viii.  11  A  vineyard  there  is  at  Baal-hammon, — 
a  vineyard  entrusted  to  keepers  ; 
Any  man  could  have  had  for  its  fruitage 
a  thousand  shekels  of  silver. 

!2  In  my  sole  charge  is  my  vineyard, 

nought  else  on  earth  do  I  care  for  :3 
I'll  resign  to  thee,  Solomon,  the  thousand, 
and  two  hundred  therefrom  to  the  keepers ! 

In  a  subsequent  love-ditty  the  lover  describes  the  superiority 
of  his  sweetheart  over  all  queens  and  concubines  as  follows  : 

vi-  8    Solomon's  queens  numbered  sixty, 
his  concubines  eighty  in  number  ; 
9    But  one  is  my  dove,  and  one  only, 
and  one  alone  my  perfection. 

From  her  birth  she  was  pure  and  was  spotless, 

unsullied  she  was  from  an  infant ; 
The  maidens  who  see  her  admire  her, 

both  queens  and  concubines  praise  her. 

1  This  explanatory  gloss  appears  in  the  received  text  at  the  end  of  the  twelfth  verse  of  the 
preceding  chapter. 

2Baal-hamon  of  the  received  text  is  an  intentional  alteration  for  Baal-khammon,  the  name 
of  a  Phoenician  solar  deity.  The  vineyard  was  probably  on  a  hill  that  was  especially  fruitful  and 
sunny  (see  Isaiah  v.  i  in  the  Polychrome  Bible,  p.  5)  and  therefore  sacred  to  Baal-khammon  [cf 
the  notes  on  Leviticus  (in  the  Polychrome  Bible,  p.  102,  1.  3). 

3cy.  Psalm  Ixxiii.  25. 


S  BIBLICAL  LOVE-DITTIES. 

He  assures  her  that  with  him  she  will  be  safe  anywhere,  on 
the  brinks  of  precipices,  on  the  tops  of  the  highest  mountains,  in 
the  haunts  of  lions  and  leopards.  He  will  guard  her  and  protect 
her.     He  says : 

From  Lebanon1  with  me  thou  mayst  journey, 

from  Lebanon  with  me,  my  bride, 
Look  down  from  the  height  of  Amana,2 

from  the  heights  of  Shenir3  and  Hermon,4 

From  the  resting  places  of  lions, 

from  mountains  haunted  by  leopards. 

We  find  also  a  little  raillery  at  the  expense  of  the  newly-mar- 
ried couple,  relating  the  teasing  answer  which  the  bridegroom  is 
said  to  have  given  to  his  sweetheart  when  she  asked  for  a  tryst. 
The  maiden  said  : 

i-  7    Oh,  tell  me,  thou,  my  beloved,  ' 

where  at  high  noon  thou  wilt  tarry  ? 
Why,  dearest,  astray  should  I  wander 
amid  the  flocks  of  thy  comrades? 

This  phrase  is  equivocal.  The  original  meaning  is  wandering 
about  in  quest  of  the  tryst,  but  it  suggests  also  the  idea  of  wander- 
ing from  the  path  of  duty.  The  Orientals  are  very  fond  of  am- 
biguities, especially  the  Jews  of  Damascus ;  a  common  saying  at 
Damascus  was  alhanu  min  Yehudi,  'more  fond  of  veiled  allusions 
than  a  Jew.'  In  the  same  way  the  phrase,  'Feed  thy  kids,'  in  the 
answer  of  the  lover  has  a  special  meaning.  A  kid  was  the  custom- 
ary present  given  to  a  female  friend  (Arab,  gadiqe)  who  was  visited 
by  a  man  from  time  to  time.  When  Judah  saw  his  daughter-in- 
law,  Tamar,  who  had  covered  her  face  and  wrapped  herself,  he 
said  to  her,  I  will  send  thee  a  kid  ;5  and  when  Samson  visited  his 
Philistine  'friend'  at  Timnath  he  brought  her  a  kid.6  Such  a  gift 
was  probably  expected  at  every  visit  of  the  husband.  The  'bride' 
remained  at  her  father's  house,  and  the  'husband'  visited  her 
there.  According  to  Ammianus  Marcellinus7  (xiv.  4)  marriage  among 
the  Saracens  was  a  temporary  contract  for  which  the  wife  received 
a  price.      In  Persia  these  temporary  alliances  are  still  recognised 

IThis  includes  the  Antilibanus,  east  of  the  Lebanon  range. 

2  That  is  the   ydbal  az-Zabaddny,  northwest  of  Damascus,  below  which  is  the  source  of  the 
river  Amana  or  Abana  (2  Kings  v.  12),  t.  e.  the  Nahr  Baradd  which  flows  through  Damascus. 
3The  northern  part  of  Antilibanus  between  Baalbec  and  Homs  (Emesa). 
i  The  highest  peak  of  the  Antilibanus,  southwest  of  Damascus. 

5  Genesis  xxxviii.  17;  cf.  Proverbs  vii.  10. 

6  Judges  xv.  1 ;  cf.  xvi.  1  and  the  notes  on  Judges,  in  the  Polychrome  Bible,  p.  83,  1.  40. 
•7  Born  at  Antioch,  Syria,  about  330  A.  D. 


BIBLICAL  LOVE-DITTIES.  9 

as  legal.1  In  the  Book  of  Tobit  (ii.  12)  we  read  that  after  Tobit 
had  been  stricken  with  blindness,  his  wife,  Anna,  went  to  a  factory 
where  women  were  employed  as  weavers,  and  when  the  owners 
gave  her  one  day  a  kid  in  addition  to  her  wages,  she  fell  out  with 
her  husband  who  would  not  believe  her  story  and  insisted  on  the 
kid  being  returned  to  the  owners  of  the  factory,  as  he  felt  ashamed 
of  his  wife.  We  know  also  that  a  young  he-goat  was  the  offering 
of  the  Greek  hetaerae  to  the  Goddess  of  Love,  Aphrodite. 
The  lover's  reply  to  his  sweetheart — 

••  8    If,  indeed,  thou  know  not  the  pathway, 

of  the  flocks,  do  thou  follow  the  footprints ; 
There,  then,  thy  kids  thou  mayst  pasture 
near  to  the  tents  of  the  shepherds! 

means  therefore,  If  you  do  not  love  me  sufficiently  to  be  instinct- 
ively guided  to  the  place  where  I  shall  rest  at  noon,  you  may  be- 
stow your  favors  on  the  other  shepherds  and  receive,  as  the  price 
of  consent,  a  number  of  kids  which  you  may  pasture  near  to  the 
tents  of  the  shepherds.  She  will  have  so  many  kids  that  she  will 
be  able  to  start  a  flock  of  her  own.  Similarly  a  poor  actor  might 
be  told  that  he  would  receive  so  many  apples  and  eggs  that  he 
would  be  able  to  open  a  grocery  store  after  the  performance. 

The  most  beautiful  poem  of  these  Biblical  love-ditties  is  con- 
tained in  verses  6  and  7  of  the  last  chapter,  which  must  be  preceded 
by  the  beginning  of  the  third  chapter: 

iii.  1    At  night,  as  I  lay  on  my  pillow, 

for  him  whom  I  love  was  I  longing. 

2  2I  will  rise  and  fare  forth  through  the  city 

both  through  streets  that  are  wide  and  are  narrow. 

3  I  met  men  who  fared  forth  through  the  city : 

Have  ye  seen  my  beloved  ?  I  asked  them. 

4  But  scarce  had  I  gone  a  step  further 

when  before  me,  lo  !  stood  my  loved  one  ! 

I  clasped  him  and  would  not  release  him, 
and  then,  lo,  I  said  to  my  loved  one; 
viii.  6    Hang  me  close  to  thy  heart  like  a  signet,3 

on  thy  hand,  like  a  ring,  do  thou  wear  me ! 

1  See  W.  Robertson  Smith,  Kinship  and  Marriage  in  Early  Arabia  (Cambridge,  1885),  pp 
65,  67,  76. 

2  Supply,  I  said  to  myself. 

3Seals  were  worn  either  as  pendants  from  a  cord  around  the  neck  (in  Gen.  xxxviii.  18  Judah 
gives  Tamar  his  seal,  his  signet-cord,  and  his  staff,  as  a  pledge)  or  as  seal-rings  on  the  right  hand 
[cf.  Jerem.  xxii.  24  ;  Haggai  ii.  23).  The  maiden  desires  to  be  just  as  close  to  her  lover's  heart  as 
his  seal  hanging  down  from  his  seal-cord,  and  just  as  dear  to  him  as  his  seal-pendant  or  his  seal- 
ring  on  his  right  hand.  '  Keep  me  as  thy  seal '  has  nearly  the  same  meaning  as  the  phrase  '  Keep 
me  as  the  apple  of  thine  eye '  (Psalm  xvii.  8,  Prov.  vii.  2,  Deut.  xxxii.  10). 


lO  BIBLICAL  LOVE-DITTIES. 

For  Love  as  Death  is  strong, 

and  Passion  as  Sheol  unyielding. 
Its  flames  are  flames  of  fire, 

its  flashes  are  flashes  of  lightning. 

7    Nothing  is  able  to  quench  it, 

Neither  can  any  streams  drown  it. 
If  one  should  resign  for  it  all  his  possessions, 
Could  any  man  therefore  contemn  him  ? 

If  the  Song  of  Solomon  is  nothing  but  a  collection  of  profane 
love-ditties  in  praise  of  sensual  love  (just  as  Psalm  xlv.  is  a  nuptial 
song  presented  by  the  Jewish  high-priest,  the  Maccabee  Jonathan, 
at  the  wedding  of  the  Syrian  King  Alexander  Balas  and  the  Egyp- 
tian princess  Cleopatra,  the  daughter  of  King  Ptolemy  VI.  Philo- 
metor,  which  was  celebrated  at  Ptolemais  in  150  B.C.  as  related  in 
1  Mace.  x.  59),  some  might  raise  the  question  whether  the  Song  of 
Songs  is  not  out  of  place  in  the  Bible.  It  is  nowhere  cited  in  the 
New  Testament.  The  great  Hebraist,  J.  D.  Michaelis,  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  Gottingen,  omitted  the  Song  of  Songs  from  his  critical 
translation  of  the  Bible.1  In  the  same  way  the  canonicity  of  the 
Book  of  Ecclesiastes  was  still  contested  in  the  second  century  of 
our  era.  We  must  remember  that  the  canon  of  Scripture  is  a  hu- 
man institution  concerning  which  opinions  differ.  The  Roman 
Catholic  Church  includes  several  book  in  the  Canon  which  are  gen- 
erally looked  upon  as  apocryphal,  although  some  of  them  are  un- 
doubtedly superior  from  a  religious  and  ethical  point  of  view  to 
certain  of  the  canonical  books;  cf.  e.  g.,  the  apocryphal  Books  of 
the  Maccabees  and  the  canonical  Book  of  Esther,  or  the  apocryphal 
Book  of  Ecclesiasticus  and  the  canonical  Book  of  Ecclesiastes. 
The  Book  of  Ecclesiastes  was  practically  condemned  by  our  Sa- 
viour. The  principal  maxim  of  Ecclesiastes,  which  is  repeated 
five  times  in  the  Book  (ii.  24,  iii.  12,  22,  v.  17,  viii.  15),  is:  Eat, 
drink,  and  be  merry,  but  in  Luke  xii.  15-31  (a  passage  which  con- 
tains several  allusions  to  Ecclesiastes,  including  the  reference  to 
the  lilies  of  the  field  and  Solomon  in  all  his  glory)  we  read  the 
beautiful  parable  of  our  Lord  in  which  He  says :  The  ground  of  a 
certain  rich  man  brought  forth  plentifully ;  and  he  thought,  I  will 
pull  down  my  barns  and  build  greater.  I  will  say  to  my  soul,  Soul 
thou  hast  much  goods  laid  up  for  many  years,  take  thine  ease,  eat, 
drink,  and  be  merry.  But  God  said  to  him,  Thou  fool,  this  night 
thy  soul  will  be  required  of  thee.     Seek  ye  first  the  kingdom  of 

1  Cf.  Johann  David  Michaelis  Deutsche  Uebersetzung  des  Alten  Testaments,  mit  Annterkungeti 
fur  Ungelehrte,  part  xii  (Gottingen,  1785),  p.  xxiv. 


BIBLICAL  LOVE-DITTIES.  II 

God  and  His  righteousness  !  Be  not  anxious  for  the  morrow.  Suffi- 
cient unto  the  day  is  the  evil  thereof.1  There  can  be  no  stronger 
condemnation  of  the  teachings  of  Ecclesiastes  than  these  words  of 
our  Saviour,  and  this  ought  to  settle  the  question,  at  least  for  the 
Christian  Church,  whether  Ecclesiastes  has  any  claims  to  canon- 
ical authority.2 

The  late  Professor  Franz  Delitzsch,  of  Leipzig,  one  of  the  fore- 
most Biblical  scholars  of  the  nineteenth  century  and  one  of  the 
most  devout  Christians  I  ever  met  in  my  life,  stated  in  the  intro- 
duction to  his  commentary  on  the  Song  of  Solomon,  that  this  Book 
was  the  most  difficult  book  in  the  Old  Testament,  but  the  meaning 
becomes  perfectly  plain,  in  fact  too  plain,  as  soon  as  we  know  that 
it  is  not  an  allegorical  dramatic  poem  but  a  collection  of  popular 
love-ditties  which  must  be  interpreted  on  the  basis  of  the  erotic 
imagery  in  the  Talmud  and  modern  Palestinian  and  other  Moham- 
medan poetry. 

1  Compare  Matthew  vi.  33. 

2  Cf.  my  paper  on  the  Book  of  Ecclesiastes  in  Oriental  Studies,  a  selection  of  the  papers  read 
before  the  Oriental  Club  of  Philadelphia,  1888-1894  (Boston  :  Ginn  &  Co.,  1894),  p.  245. 


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